Tunneling for Sunlight: Twenty-One Maxims of Living Wisdom from Buddhism and Japanese Psychology to Cope with Difficult Times

When you suddenly find yourself blind and lost, the best thing to do is to stay still and allow it to pass gently through your system, giving it the minimum mental attention possible. This deep acceptance of entropy as natural in your life will eventually allow you to unlock its true potential and in time transcend it entirely.

You seek the worldly rewards of success, you achieve some (or a lot) of them, and you may be deeply attached to these rewards. But you must be prepared to walk away from these achievements and rewards before you feel ready. The decline in your fluid intelligence is a sign that it is time not to rage, which just doubles down on your unsatisfying att

Consider the following: In Buddhism, the goal of the spiritual path, if there is one, is Nirvana, or the dissolution of self in connection with something larger, with an ever-expanding spaciousness and timelessness. Taoism’s central concept, the Way, is described as a non-dual experience, the merging of subject and object—often represented by yin a

Yoshida Kenkō shared in his Tsurezuregusa (Essays in Idleness) back in the 14th century: